West Louisville Forum to discuss 'black underachievement' in JCPS

The topic of this month's West Louisville Forum is called "JCPS: Just Caucasian Pupils Succeed?" -- in regard to the crisis of black underachievement in Louisville's public schools, according to a press release sent out by Simmons College of Kentucky, which hosts the monthly luncheon.

Wednesday, February 1st 2017, 11:21 AM EST

Updated:

Wednesday, February 1st 2017, 11:32 AM EST

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The widening achievement gap between African American students and their white counterparts in Jefferson County Public Schools will be discussed at an event for the West Louisville Forum on Wednesday.

The luncheon, being held at the St. Stephen Church Family Life Center at noon, is called "JCPS: Just Caucasian Pupils Succeed?" -- in regard to the crisis of black underachievement in Louisville's public schools, according to a press release sent out by Simmons College of Kentucky, which hosts the monthly luncheon.

Raymond Burse, the former president of Kentucky State University, will moderate the discussion, which will include comments from current JCPS school board member Diane Porter, former school board member David Jones Jr. and Marion Llewellyn, principal of the Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School in Indianapolis.

The Tindley school is open-enrollment charter school serving grades 6-12; it opened its doors in 2004.

Here is video posted by Simmons College of Kentucky about the forum:

Test scores from the 2015-16 year show that the overall percentage of JCPS students considered proficient in reading and math increased from 44.4 to 46.2 percent last year and that 63.4 percent of students were considered college and career ready, up from 63 percent in 2014-15.

All of the district's individual student groups, except limited English speaking students, increased their proficiency rates in combined reading and math, but they still lag behind the state average.

Perhaps the most troubling of all the scores is that JCPS' low-income and minority students continue to lag behind their peers across multiple content areas and grade levels.

Indeed, the district's achievement gap between white and black students increased to 29.4 percent this year from 28.4 percent last year. The data shows that just over 58 percent of white students scored proficient in reading and math, while only 29 percent of black students did.

This event is part of a series of West Louisville Forums designed to find solutions to problems facing Louisville's West End.